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Pope keeps Vatileaks file under wraps

Pope Benedict XVI ... will not give cardinals access to a secret Vatican dossier on leaked papal documents before they meet to elect his successor. Photo: Reuters

POPE Benedict XVI, struggling to tame intrigue, will not give cardinals access to a secret Vatican dossier on leaked papal documents before they meet to elect his successor.

Benedict, 85, who on Thursday will become the first pontiff in 600 years to retire, had met the three cardinals who investigated the case known as Vatileaks, the Holy See press office said in a statement.

The case led last year to the arrest of the Pope's butler in one of the worst security breaches in modern Vatican history.

The Pope thanked cardinals Julian Herranz, Jozef Tomko and Salvatore De Giorgi for work that ''made it possible to detect, given the limitations and imperfections of the human factor in every institution, the generosity and dedication of those who work with uprightness and generosity in the Holy See'', the statement said.

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However, ''the acts of this investigation … will remain solely at the disposition of the new Pope''.

Speculation that a frail Benedict has struggled to stem intrigue has been fuelled by his own words. In his final address on Saturday to the Curia, the bureaucracy that runs the Vatican, he lamented the ''evil, suffering and corruption'' that has defaced the church.

Last week the Italian magazine Panorama and La Repubblica newspaper reported the Pope had decided to resign in December after receiving the secret dossier that allegedly detailed sex and corruption in the Vatican and suggested some prelates' conduct made them vulnerable to blackmail.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said the reports did not ''correspond to reality''.

The dossier would remain secret, although the cardinals who compiled it might inform their counterparts of its contents before the conclave, to help them ''evaluate the situation and choose a new Pope'', Father Lombardi said.

The leaked texts formed the backbone of a book portraying the Vatican as a hotbed of intrigue and Benedict as a leader undermined by his powerful second-in-command, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

In a rare public rebuke, the Vatican lashed out at the media at the weekend, accusing journalists of ''widespread distribution of often unverified, unverifiable or completely false news stories'' that amounted to an attempt ''to exert pressure'' on the cardinals who will gather for the conclave.

The Pope will address the cardinals on Thursday before flying to his summer residence south of Rome. He will return to live in a Vatican convent two months later.